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• gorgonize •

Pronunciation: gor-gê-naiz • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Verb

Meaning: 1. To petrify, to turn into stone. 2. To paralyze, stupefy, petrify.

Notes: This eponym is based on gorgon, either a horrible Greek mythological woman or a derogatory word referring to a repulsive woman. It comes with two adjectives, gorgonesque and gorgonian. A gorgoneion is a representation of a gorgon's head, especially on a shield. When referring to the mythological woman, it is usually capitalized, Gorgon.

In Play: In the original sense of this rare word, we might interpret "turn into stone" as "carve a statue": "Randy loves Cynthia so much he promised to gorgonize her for posterity." In the sense "paralyze" might be seen as "severely captivate", it might be found in expressions like this: "Carnaby could gorgonize an audience around a campfire with a stony look, as he told a frightening story in a scary voice."

Word History: Today's Good Word emanates from Greek Gorgon, one of the three mythological sisters with writhing venomous snakes for hair (Medusa, Stheino, and Euryale), and whose gaze could turn people to stone. The name is based on the adjective gorgos "terrible". The origin of this word is rather mysterious. It seems to be a reduplicated form related to Sanskrit ghora "terrible, dreadful" and Russian groza "thunder(storm)", which would take it back to Proto-Indo-European ger-/gor- "to make a loud noise, to shriek or roar". However, this PIE word seems related mostly to animal sounds, like Lithuanian garnys "heron", Latin grus "crane", German Krähe "crow", and English crow. (Let's all tip our e-hats once again to the mysterious Grogie of the Agora for recommending today's rare but fascinating Good Word.)

Is this the quick way to be stoned to death?

Merely being turned to stone is surely not enough to kill you, is it? I can't recall, but Phillip Hudson surely will, whether Mrs Lot was returned to flesh after she looked back and was petrified. I'll look that one up now.

Apparently not. She is still there.

Does this mean Lot's wife rocks?

Or does she stand behind him like a rock?



Is this formation actually salt, or some other rock? If salt, that would be quite something.

Wikipedia say it's basalt.

Ahh! Well does that suggest a mistranslation from the original Greek in the bible? Was Lot's wife turned actually into a pillar of basalt?

Salt or basalt, it doesn't matter. Just don't look back under any circumstances.

Way to go, Philip!